BYT Interviews: Sons of Bill

Whether home in Virginia or touring the country, he’s up with the sun. “I can’t stop. I can’t help it,” the Sons of Bill singer tells me on an early Thursday morning. “It definitely bothers the guys on the road.”

The Charlottesville singer has never been one to stay down for long. The same goes for his band.

Over the past decade, Sons of Bill has tirelessly toured. It has amassed an intensely devoted base of followers. And, not coincidentally, it has made better and better records. Its latest, Love and Logic, feels like a culmination of those ten years of experience. It is a nuanced and patient record – one that doesn’t swing for the fences on every single pitch, but instead waits for the right moment, and when it connects, the results are jaw-dropping. Starry-eyed opener “Big Unknown” is one of the finest songs you’ll hear all year, and it sets the stage what’s to follow. “Hold on tight,” indeed.

“We’re all really proud of this one,” Wilson says, and Love and Logic was truly a team effort. He and his brothers Abe and Sam are still the band’s principal songwriters, and while each brings his own songs to the table, the distinction between the three melts in the warmth of Love and Logic‘s harmonies and joined voices. Genre demarcations are also fading: Sons of Bill may play with an unmistakable twang and get covered in “Rolling Stone Country”, but the record harkens back to mid/late ’90s heyday of alt-country, when bands like Wilco and the Jayhawks were pushing the boundaries of their sound well past their country origins. Fittingly, then, it was Wilco’s original drummer, Ken Coomer, who produced Love and Logic at his Nashville studio.

When we connect, James is on the way to see his sister, driving through downtown Charlottesville and lamenting its “terrible, terrible” drivers. Wilson’s hometown is more congested than ever these days. “Oh man, it is a bougie town now,” he jokes. “But it has really, really changed. I’ve been out-priced by own town.”

He gives fair warning that he’s liable to space out during the commute. I offer to reschedule.

What’s the story of Love and Logic?Walk me through the genesis of this record and the process of making it.

Some of the songs are old songs. “Fishing Song” didn’t make One Town Away. That’s probably a six-year-old song that we brought back. These songs weren’t written in a short timeframe.

We were in a weird place. We had just ended our management situation. We had left our booking situation. Things kind of fell apart during the making of Sirens. We were lone gunmen. We were trying to figure out if we could afford to make another record. But I heard Abe playing “Brand New Paradigm” on piano and loved it. That’s what’s always driven us to forge on and make another record: The feeling that we have songs that need to get out there. The feeling that we have to give them lives. That’s always been the impetus.

Ken [Coomer] had heard our vinyl version of “Bad Dancer” and gotten in touch with me. Obviously, I’ve been a Wilco fan since high school, so it was a real honor for me. He said, “Come down to Nashville. Let’s just do two songs. Let’s take a long weekend and see how it goes.” This was probably the beginning of last summer. So we tracked “Brand New Paradigm”, and it just felt great. There was something very different about tracking with Ken. From there, we started forging ahead and tracked the record.

We took a long time with it. We didn’t do pre-production. We just spent the time in the studio, which I feel like we needed to do as a band. We had tried to self-produce this record. We thought that we could save money that way. All of us are capable of doing it. I’ve produced records. Sam’s produced records. We thought, “Why can’t we produce our own records? I feel like we can do this.” We tried to do it in Richmond at Sound of Music, but we just kept hitting walls. We recorded for two weeks, and at the end, it was like, “Fuck, we don’t have anything. I don’t know if this is good.” We knew that the songs were different and needed to get to a new place, but the three brothers were just really butting heads. We couldn’t figure out a way to move forward.

When we got into the studio with Ken, we had someone that we could talk to. Wilco was this band that went through these kind of growing pains. Jeff [Tweedy] and Jay Bennett and Ken fought constantly about their records, but they worked through going from A.M. to Being There to Summer Teeth to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. He had seen the band dynamic before. He was able to become a band member of ours for those two months of time and see it through. He even played drums on a few songs.

We took songs one at a time. We didn’t track all of drums and then track all of the bass, which was the way that we had made Sirens. We took each song from drums to basically mix before we moved on, which is more time consuming, but it’s what we needed to do to get to place that we wanted to be.

How did you know that these songs were different?

The main thing is obvious: Abe has stepped up to the plate as really the main writer on this record, rather than me. I co-wrote some songs with him, and I’ve got my own songs on there too, but in a lot ways this record was just a big letting go. It was letting go of what we thought the industry needed to hear. It was letting go of what we thought our roles in the band were. It was letting go of what we thought our fans wanted to hear. It was letting go of ideas like, “Oh, we can’t have a five-minute dirge with no chorus.” We just let all of that go.

It was also me letting go of the band. When we made Sirens, I had a tyrannical death grip over the band. I thought that the whole world was out to destroy my unravished bride of quietude. And I ended up making the record worse, because I couldn’t let go. This time, Ken made me let go of the production thing. I let Sam and Abe step up as vocalists and writers and show what great artists they are. And we’re a better band for it. We made a better record for it. It was fun for me to become a band member in that way.

It’s a grower record. It’s not a first listen record. There’s so much fear in the music industry – especially in this Spotify/Twitter/YouTube world – about making substantive records that might take a little bit longer. If I hear the phrase “make it pop” one more time, I’m going to drive into oncoming traffic. I’m not into music to “make it pop,” you know?

When we went into the studio, Ken was like, “We’re not going to think about radio. We’re not going to think about your old records. We’re just going to look at each of these songs one by one. We’re going to try to go in there and make something that we all love.” There was no label breathing down our neck at that point. There was no manager breathing down our neck. It was very different.

It’s a grower record, but you gotta have the faith that it’ll reach the people that it needs to reach.

I’d imagine that a song starts with one of you, but at some point does something stop belonging to a particular person and become just a band song? What’s the songwriting dialogue like?

When we co-write, it’s not like we’re sitting in a room and saying, “Let’s write a song about dogs.” It’s usually that someone has a demo, and he tracks it on Garage Band, and e-mails it around. Some people in the band may like it off the bat; some may say, “I don’t think this is anything.” And then we just kind of sit with it and let it marinate. From there, we either start the writing process or start coming up with parts. We’ll usually get together at Seth’s rehearsal space and really hash it out.

The co-writing process usually takes place over months of time, with each of us sitting with the demos and thinking about it. My brothers are the only people that I co-write with, because there’s a lot of trust. They get it when there’s something there.

Sometimes it happens really fast. We wrote “Arms of a Landslide” in, like, one day. But it happens in different ways. It’s all about recognizing when it’s done and trusting the band members’ feedback and input.

Do you feel a sense of pride in not having any outside musicians play on the record?

It might seem that way, but it wasn’t really a point of pride. We’ve had Greg Leisz play on past records, because he’s probably the best pedal steel player in the universe. This was really a prideless record. We were all really musically focused. I know that might sound cheesy. But Abe let me sing some of his songs. Sam played piano on songs. Abe played guitar on songs. There was a lot of switching of instruments. So much of this record was trying to find our sound. That’s taken time. I feel like our records keep getting better, because we’re constantly honing in.

We didn’t want to get a bunch of outside help, especially in Nashville, because those guys are trained in the sound of the moment, be it in the indie or country worlds. They go in there, and they do their thing, and they do it really quickly. We didn’t want to have that sound on the record. I’d rather have Sam – who’s kind of a neophyte on piano, but he uses it for composing – go in there and play with a ton of heart, even if it’s not be the most technically correct thing. Abe isn’t the best banjo player in the world, but he gets it. It was important for the five of us to be in there and doing it that way, rather than doing the fearful thing, which is thinking, “Oh, this is our big record, we gotta get all of these Nashville badasses in here to track.” That would have been the wrong mentality.

What were you impressions of Nashville and the atmosphere surrounding country music there?

Nashville’s a great town. I actually spent the summer in Nashville, just because we weren’t touring or doing something new. I do think that Nashville is going through some growing pains. A lot of people are leaving L.A. and New York and coming to Nashville – from the rock world and the pop world and the independent world. It seems like Nashville is being primed to be the next New York. With that comes all of the posturing g of a New York or L.A. – the who’s who of the whole industry buzz. I don’t think that Nashville has quite grown in that yet.

It was nice to be in Nashville with that level of professionalism, but we’re still a Virginia band. We’ll always be based out of here. It’s a very different musical mentality. The other thing is that Nashville has a bit of a strength in numbers mentality when it comes to writing and making records – you know, if you write a song a day, it’s going to be better. Or: “Let’s get ten people together to write a song! We’ll write fifty songs this week!” It just wears off the edges of everything. You start to distrust your instincts. It’s a great town and there’s so much talent there, but it’s been good for us to keep some distance.

What songs did you bring to the group? What can you share about them?

“Brand New Paradigm” was the first song that brought us together as a band. It was the hinge song of the record. Abe wrote that one though. He’s much more influenced by British guys than I am. We let that stretch out on the record. We didn’t shy away from the Beatles or Pink Floyd influences. That was such a part of his upbringing and what he loves about music. The same goes for the new wave music that I love. We wanted to let that stuff breathe into the music. We weren’t afraid to let that be expressed on a Sons of Bill record.

The first song that I wrote was “Bad Dancer”. I wrote it really quickly. It’s a three-minute pop song that I wrote for Elizabeth Shue. That’s all I have to say about that one. [Laughs]

Abe doesn’t talk about his songs, so I don’t even know what a lot of them are about sometimes. He’s one of my favorite writers right now, just in general. I have some distance from it. I admire him as a writer, even though he’s in my band. It’s always hard to tell who the speaker is in his songs – if it’s character driven or if it’s him. “Lost in the Cosmos” is kinda Abe, but he also wrote it for Chriss Bell of Big Star, so its kinda from his perspective. You never really know who’s talking. It always keeps you guessing, whereas I wear my heart on my sleeve more. It’s always me talking about my feelings. [Laughs]

“Big Unknown” is one that we struggled with. We struggled to get it right. Finally, Ken just pulled the plug and was like, “We’re forgetting all of this crap. Abe, go in there with an acoustic. James, get in here and stop talking. Let’s start with that.” That’s why it starts with Abe strumming an acoustic. And then I got in there and sang it with him, and Todd picked a time to come in. We were trying not to think too much. We just went in there and found it. Abe’s line “Still walking that narrow line between seeing God and wasting your time” is one of those simple phrases that cuts to the heart of the matter. It’s a song that means a lot to me, and it certainly meant a lot for us when we were recording the record. That’s why we wanted to open the record with it. It all felt very relevant to where we were: proceeding in the face of all these questions and yet still being hopeful for the future.

The record is really nicely sequenced.

That was a process. Because we looked at each song individually, it’s hard to make “Hymn Song” and “Bad Dancer” at home on the same record. In our mind, it’s a coherent whole.

What have the past few years been like for you personally?

I think all of us feel like this our most mature record, but that’s really because we’ve grown up a little bit. We spent the past few years being scared kids. There’s so much fear and self-doubt in being a musician. You vacillate from thinking that you’re on top of the world to thinking that you’re terrible. It’s a terrible place to be. You think you either gotta be Tom Waits and the real thing or you’re a total phony. It’s a place where I think a lot of young people in bands are.

The last two years have been a lot of financial worries and artistic worries – all those things. We’re trying to make relationships work. Two of the guys are married now.

We think this is our best record, and even though you never know how something’s going to do commercially, there’s a real sense of calm and confidence with the whole band. We can stand by what we’ve done. We’re ready to do it: We’re touring the whole country over the next two-and-a-half months, and then we’re going home for Christmas, and then we’re off to Europe.

The same five guys have lasted this long. That’s a special thing in its own right. We’ve come to place where we’re comfortable in our own skin, and it’s a great place to be.

Time

Cost

Event Details

Beyond the fog of burning blunts, the sea of whiskey, and forest of empties, you’ll find two sweethearts in a Nashville garage. Just as they were yesterday, the day before

more

Event Details

Beyond the fog of burning blunts, the sea of whiskey, and forest of empties, you’ll find two sweethearts in a Nashville garage. Just as they were yesterday, the day before that, and years prior. Searching for the perfect combination of string plucking, button pushing, and knob turning to craft the ideal sound to make you forget your world and step into theirs. The aforementioned sweethearts are Jordan Kelley and Jason Huber; known to most as “Cherub.”

It all began in 2010 at Middle Tennessee State University. The two met as Jason was playing around town with local bands and Jordan was crafting what would become known as their first album, Man of the Hour. A few years later, it was the song “Doses & Mimosas” that caught the attention of the public and gained the interest of Columbia Records, who signed the duo in 2013. Their 4 year major label run brought their fans two LP’s, Year of the Caprese and Bleed Gold Piss Excellence, while also sending them around the world playing festivals such as Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, Outside Lands, Osheaga, Summer Camp, Summer Sonic, and headlining 4 US tours. Now, a gold record and 130 million Spotify streams later, the bond between them remains “unfuckwithable,” as they construct their newest batch of genre-defying anthems.

From the streets of Bangkok, to the dive bars of Nashville, Cherub has been drawing inspiration from everything around them. “Each one of these songs was written and recorded at different times, in different places across the world,” says Jason. “It seems to make sense, releasing each new song individually, giving us a chance to take you to where we were in our heads when it was created and pair each track with a something visual to tie it together.”

Straying from the common record label strategy of releasing a single or two followed by an album, Cherub has decided to give each new song it’s own time in the sun. “We don’t want anything to get lost,” says Jordan. The new collection of work spans multiple genres while still keeping with the same style of addictively playful melodies Cherub fans have grown to love. It’s a “song first, production later” approach at creating music that may bring some ears back to an earlier time in the duo’s existence. “There’s a certain simplicity in these new songs that remind me of the first few Cherub records,” says Jason.

There’s no doubt that the latest Cherub efforts will win over their existing audience and draw new listeners to their established brand of debauchery. From your ears to your heart, like searching for room on their bodies for a new tattoo, they’ll find a way.

Cost

Event Details

Years before they climbed the country charts with songs like “Stay a Little Longer” and “Rum,” the Brothers Osborne grew up in Deale, Maryland, a small fishing town on the

more

Event Details

Years before they climbed the country charts with songs like “Stay a Little Longer” and “Rum,” the Brothers Osborne grew up in Deale, Maryland, a small fishing town on the Atlantic seaboard. It was a cozy place, filled with blue-collar workers who made their living on the water. During the weekends, many of those workers would head over to the Osborne household, where a series of loose, all-night jam sessions filled the Maryland air with the sounds of Bob Seger, Hank Williams, Tom Petty and George Jones. The Osborne siblings strummed their first chords during those jam sessions. From the very start, TJ Osborne was the brother with the voice. He sang in a thick, low baritone, crooning like Johnny Cash long before he was even old enough to drive. Older brother John, on the other hand, was the family’s guitar shredder, his fingers capable of down-home bluegrass licks, arena-worthy rock riffs, country twang, and everything in between. Combined, the two Osbornes could play everything from traditional country music to rock & roll, creating a broad, full-bodied sound that would eventually fill the 11 songs on their major-label debut, Pawn Shop.

Like its title suggests, Pawn Shop offers a little bit of everything. There’s bluesy slide guitar, country duets, southern rock solos, harmonies, and plenty of groove. The hooks are big, the guitars are loud, and the songs — every last one of them co-written by the Osbornes, who reached out to award-winning songwriters like Shane McAnally and Ross Copperman for help — introduce a duo whose music bridges the gap between the mainstream and the alternative world. Some songs were written at home in Nashville, while others came together on the road, where the guys spent several years headlining their own club shows, touring the country with Darius Rucker, and playing some of the biggest arenas in America with fellow rule-breaker Eric Church.

Cost

Event Details

First night sold out! Second night added! Recording artist Vince Staples has come a long way from his trying upbringing in Long Beach, California’s Ramona Park neighborhood. Releasing his critically acclaimed

more

Event Details

First night sold out! Second night added!

Recording artist Vince Staples has come a long way from his trying upbringing in Long Beach, California’s Ramona Park neighborhood. Releasing his critically acclaimed debut Summertime ’06 album in 2015, the then twenty-year-old saw his life turned right side up, going from being nearly trapped to having what appeared to be complete freedom.

Yet, as his most recent projects suggest, appearances can be deceiving. The LPs delves into the confusion of sudden fame and acclimating to a lifestyle antithetical to the one he’d known in Long Beach – one wrought with gang violence and poverty. It’s a fundamental narrative in hip hop, but rappers have always found a new way to breathe life into it. Staples brings forth a vision that’s brutal, elegant, playful, and despondent in one breath.

Such is the nature of his music, as self and socially aware as it is comical. With FM!, Big Fish Theory, Prima Donna and Summertime ’06 behind him, Staples has set the tone for what’s yet to come. A standout rapper in today’s hip hop world, he keeps his sound deeply tied to his west coast roots and his message one that knows no boundaries.

In a world of full of painful departures, his art gives listeners reason to believe that, somehow, as he advances, the people who have left him and the people who he’s left behind will still be waiting for him at the end.

Cost

Event Details

“I want real things— live people to take hold of —to see—and talk to—music that makes holes in the sky—I want to love as hard as I can.” – Georgia

more

Event Details

“I want real things— live people to take hold of —to see—and talk to—music that makes holes in the sky—I want to love as hard as I can.” – Georgia O’Keefe

Inspired by Georgia O’Keefe’s words, the trailblazing, NPR chart-topping Lara Downes has channeled her prodigious creativity and “luscious, moody, and dreamy” (New York Times) sound into an intimate program of solo and ensemble works that pays tribute to women past and present who are composers and poets. Her special guest is multi-instrumentalist/composer/singer and MacArthur “Genius Award” winner Rhiannon Giddens, who, through her own work and her performances as a member of the Grammy-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, embodies precisely the ethos Downes had in mind.

This performance is made possible through the generous support of the Susan B. Hepner Family and Great Jones Capital. Washington Performing Arts performances at Sixth & I are made possible through the generous support of the Galena-Yorktown Foundation.

Cost

Event Details

On her debut album This Time, L.A.-based singer/songwriter Donna Missal shows the elegant collision of elements at play in her music: a poet’s command of tone, a soul singer’s boundless

more

Event Details

On her debut album This Time, L.A.-based singer/songwriter Donna Missal shows the elegant collision of elements at play in her music: a poet’s command of tone, a soul singer’s boundless intensity, a bedroom musician’s willful embracing of intimacy and experimentation. Along with channeling the raw passion she first ignited by playing in rock bands in her homeland of New Jersey, This Time expands on the melodic ingenuity displayed in recent singles like “Driving” and “Thrills.” Above all the album is a testament to the sheer force of Missal’s voice, a dynamic but delicate instrument that achieves a beautifully nuanced expression even as she belts her heart out.

Cost

Event Details

Few bands get to spring a surprise six albums into their career. Even fewer do so in as dramatic a fashion as You Me At Six do on their simply

more

Event Details

Few bands get to spring a surprise six albums into their career. Even fewer do so in as dramatic a fashion as You Me At Six do on their simply titled new record, VI. They know what you probably think of them – “The emo pop-rockers from Surrey,” as guitarist Chris Miller puts it – and once upon a time you would have been right. But not for a long time, and certainly not on VI, a record that switches moods and styles with breathless confidence, from devastatingly defiant rock to joyously uplifting pop. It all but drips with melodies and moods. It’s the kind of record a band makes when they are in love with all the possibilities of music.

Cost

Event Details

One of the most influential modern stars in Texas’ long country-music tradition, Pat Green has left a mark on the lives of countless fans and generations of artists, helping to

more

Event Details

One of the most influential modern stars in Texas’ long country-music tradition, Pat Green has left a mark on the lives of countless fans and generations of artists, helping to solidify a cultural movement bringing artists from the Lonestar state to the national stage along the way.

The problem is, he’s always been too modest to admit it.Now with the release of Dancehall Dreamin’: A Tribute to Pat Green, the legendary troubadour has no choice in the matter. He’s being saluted by those who know him best – artists like Jack Ingram, Randy Rogers Band and more – with a surprise album meant to highlight some of the icon’s best-loved songs.“I certainly didn’t see it coming,” Green says of the honor. “For my friends to do this for me, I just immediately felt like ‘Wow, what an incredible thing.’ I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude, and I know I would do this for each and every one of them.”Conceived as a heartfelt gift for Green’s 46th birthday, Dancehall Dreamin’ looks back over a career which has put the star at the vanguard of Texas country. Since 1995, Green has released 13 albums (12 recorded in studio and one live), and sold more than two million records, racking up a staggering 12 Number Ones on the Texas Radio chart (including his most-recent single, “Drinkin’ Days”). Green has also released ten Billboard radio hits and has placed songs like “Wave on Wave” in the Top Five of Billboard’s Country Airplay chart.

He’s been nominated for three Grammy awards and is still regarded as one of the most electrifying entertainers on tour, covering millions of miles and filling venues like the historic Gruene Hall and the massive Houston Astrodome with equal ease. Even mainstream stars like Willie Nelson, Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban and Dave Matthews have taken Green out on the road, recognizing the mass appeal of his everyday anthems, dedicated to the simple joys and inevitable heartbreaks of the American experience.

In short, Green has been instrumental in putting Texas country on the map, paving the way for scores of other artists who share his passion for authenticity. And now it’s time for them to say ‘thank you.’

“I’m really terrible at taking compliments,” Green admits, flattered by his first tribute project. “The funny thing is, all I did was lean as far forward over my skis and take as many chances as I could until something happened, and the end result is this almost 25-year-long career. But if my work made it easier for other people to do theirs, well then, it was my pleasure.”

Three years in the making, Dancehall Dreamin’ features 10 of Green’s trailblazing songs performed by peers and protégés alike. Ingram and Rogers are joined by Texas standard-bearers William Clark Green, John Baumann, Josh Abbott Band, Aaron Watson, Walt Wilkins, Cory Morrow, Drew Holcomb and Kevin Fowler.Each artist chose a track to make their own, and with the help of producers Justin Pollard, Dwight Baker and Thomas Dulin, showcased the universal power of Green’s words – and the range of sounds he’s helped inspire.

“It’s overwhelming to listen to somebody else singing a song that you wrote,” Green explains. “But I think everybody was very tasty in their choices, and to hear Jack Ingram sing ‘Wave on Wave’ and to hear Randy Rogers sing ‘Three Days,’ I ain’t gonna lie – I got a little misty.”

“Jack Ingram is one of my favorite people who ever walked on two feet,” Green says. “I was on Twitter the other day and somebody said ‘Jack Ingram could sing the phone book and make it sound cool,’ and that’s the truth. He just oozes it.”

Likewise, Rogers and his band put their own, easy-rolling stamp on Green’s Grammy-nominated “Three Days,” joined by the song’s co-creator and acclaimed Texas artist, Radney Foster.“I’m a big fan of Randy, and I love his style,” Green explains. “You’ve got to understand how intense I am. From being onstage to recording, everything is up, up, up. That’s why people who are the opposite of me – really calm and cool and collected – those are the people I admire. Randy’s throttle is different from mine. I dig it.”

More favorites like “Wrapped” (Clark Green), “Crazy” (Watson), “Adios Days” (Morrow) and “Southbound 35” (Fowler) are faithfully reimagined, while rising talent Baumann managed to surprise even Green with his connection to the vivid emotions coursing through “Nightmare.” Written on the day Green’s grandfather passed away, Baumann brings it to life in unmatched clarity.“My grandfather was very important in my life,” says Green, who uses the album’s second half to offer behind-the-scenes insight for each song. “Baumann’s rendition of ‘Nightmare’ absolutely blew my doors off. He had a more gentle touch on it than I did, and he somehow seemed even more sensitive to the subject matter.”Meanwhile, Green’s long and winding journey is placed in context by Holcomb, who delivers the gentle, acoustic strains of the album’s title track, “Dancehall Dreamer.”